The View From Here: Culture shock? Not really.

Two months ago, after spending a year in New York City, I packed everything I owned into a rental car, drove 15 hours from the East Coast to America’s heartland and settled here in Lafayette to work at the Journal & Courier.

Before living in New York City, I had grown up on the South Side of Chicago. Big city life was all I’d ever known.

Once I got situated in Lafayette, there were only a few stark changes. For the first time in my life, a car was needed to get around. And for the first time, I woke up to the sound of birds chirping outside my bedroom window.

People often give me an incredulous look when I tell them those are the only changes I’ve experienced since moving here. But it’s the truth. I haven’t had a difficult time adjusting.

I came to this conclusion after spending time with one of my J&C colleagues, Wei-Huan Chen, the new arts and entertainment reporter.

Not too long ago, Wei and I were grabbing drinks downtown at the Black Sparrow. It was about 11 p.m. We were expounding on our never-ending existential crises, as 20-somethings often do. It was turning into a full-on therapy session.

My eyes then wandered to a rowdy group of patrons no more than two feet away from us. They looked fairly young. At that table, about 25 people were drinking, laughing and taking selfies.

Wei thought it was a bachelor party. I thought they were just an average bunch of drunken partygoers. We later discovered it was a 10-year reunion for a local high school.

Wei and I both found it interesting, but when we began thinking about what our own reunions would be like, we jokingly shuddered at the very idea of attending one.

We continued to laugh. We had deep, often meandering, philosophical conversations. Before long, I looked down at my hard cider, then I checked the time on my phone. It was well past 1 a.m. There we were, still drinking, still talking — clearly enjoying each other’s company, and I couldn’t think of any other place I’d rather be.

That’s when I realized that it didn’t matter if I were in Manhattan having a drink with friends or here in Lafayette at the Black Sparrow. Just like the rowdy reunion gang nearby, their good time was centered on quality bonds with friends, making geography irrelevant.

Of course, big cities have an energy, a pulse and an alluring mystique about them. Big cities — especially Chicago and New York — have millions of people to meet and thousands of things to do (and places to go) on any given night.

But I realized that night the most salient thing to do is to forge friendships that are void of guile, but full of authenticity. Wei and I were doing just that.

Clark is a reporter at the Journal & Courier. He can be reached at dclark@jconline.com or on Twitter @DartDClark.